Extract from How to Process a Murder by Laughton Rees

A real murder scene is not like the ones you see on TV and in films.

There are no wisecracking detectives drinking coffee and trading gallows humor as they step over a bloodied corpse. There will be humor, and there will certainly be coffee, but that will come later.

In the beginning there is only silence and reverence, the same type and tone you would find at a funeral. Also, like a funeral, there will be a steady procession of people filing past the body, witnesses to what has happened, both civilian and professional, casual and key. And though the testimony of these people will help form an understanding of what has taken place here, there are other witnesses whose contribution to the investigation can be just as valuable. Everything that was disturbed by the killer or their victim, everything that was touched, no matter how lightly, can also tell you something about what took place here and why. For there is a peculiar alchemy that occurs in the white heat of violence that turns the basest of things into something more valuable than gold. And it is these unremarkable objects, the overturned and sometimes overlooked, that can help tell the story of what happened here.

These are the dark objects that will help you catch your killer.